


if the silence takes you (then i hope it takes me too)

by wekeepeachotherhuman



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, PTSD, post-TFA, recovery fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 03:11:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13067904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wekeepeachotherhuman/pseuds/wekeepeachotherhuman
Summary: When Finn wakes up from his coma, he goes to Yavin IV to recover and stays with Kes Dameron, in Poe’s old bedroom.When the First Order finds the Resistance on D’Qar, our band of heroes is nearly destroyed. One lone transport carrier holds what is left of the fight against the First Order.In the face of such loss and devastation, the only place Poe Dameron can imagine to be is home.





	if the silence takes you (then i hope it takes me too)

Poe had been sending holos back to Finn on Yavin IV nearly every other day. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on how busy things were at the base. The Resistance was still posted on D’Qar. After everything that had happened on Starkiller, the galaxy was in relative silence. It wasn’t the sort of calm silence every Resistance fighter, and Rebel before them, had been striving towards. It wasn’t the quietness of peace. It was the quietness of total destruction. That moment of nothingness where the notion of rebuilding anything still feels too painful. The utter loss and bitter sweetness of what was meant to be a victory were still too fresh.

Finn had awoken, his spine nearly back together again, about a week after he and Rey had returned from the First Order base. He’d left for Yavin IV about a week after that. It’d been Poe who suggested he go there. D’Qar, the war in general, was no place for recovery. Finn would stay with Kes Dameron. Sleeping in the bedroom that Poe had grown up in. He would stay there, accompanied by QT-9, a therapy droid that would help him with his physical training. Kes Dameron would help with everything else.

Immediately, Finn could see Poe in his father. Poe was there in Kes’ kindness and compassion. He was there in Kes’ determination to _help_ and _do the right thing_. In fact, Poe Dameron was everywhere. Not just in his father. He was there in the music the live bands would play in the cantina in town. He was there in the force tree that continued to grow in their front yard: quietly powerful and protective.

Finn missed Poe. He missed _Rey_. But he didn’t miss resistance. He yearned for tranquility and connection, and had finally been given it. He would fight for his friends. He would fight for what was right, but he hadn’t _asked_ to be a symbol of resistance. He hadn’t _asked_ to join a war at all. He’d asked for agency. He’d asked for freedom. He’d asked for safety. And he had those things here. For now, he had those things. Going back to war, fighting the way that the First Order trained him to do made his skin crawl, made his throat close up and lungs contract, until QT-9 guided him through some calming breathing exercises.

“You can stay with my Dad,” Poe had told him, back in Poe’s quarters just after Finn had been discharged from the medical bay. “You can stay there until you’re better.”

“Poe,” Finn said slowly. _Until you’re better…_

Poe’d been smiling. Now, he wasn’t. “Yeah?”

“I don’t know when I’ll be ready. Or if I want—…” He’d trailed off, letting Poe finish that sentence any way that he wanted to.

Maybe it hadn’t been right to ask for Poe to read his mind. Maybe he should have been more communicative, more _honest_. Maybe he should have just said: _I don’t want to be a part of this fight_. Poe’s face told him that he’d understood. Behind his eyes, it’d been like a light had flickered out, only for a moment, and then clicked back into place. A hope lost and then regained because Finn hadn’t _actually said it_. He hadn’t _actually_ said that he didn’t want to come back to this base. _To him_. And maybe it was wrong to let that hope lie.

“That’s fine,” Poe said, turning away, idly tidying up his desk. “You’ll be ready when you’re ready.”

And maybe that would be true too. Maybe, just like it felt for the galaxy, for the Hosnian system, maybe that quietness of total destruction would also pass in him. Maybe, one day, he would be ready to rebuild. And so that’s how he justified letting that hope lie. Maybe one day they would both be ready to rebuild. _Together_.

It’s in the cantina in town that Finn first hears the rumour about the First Order attacking a Resistance base in the Illenium system. It’s in the cantina that Finn realizes it’s been three days since he’s gotten a holo from Poe. It’s in the cantina that Finn realizes that there are different ways to be scared. And some are worse than others.

He throws some currency down on the table and hasn’t run so fast in his life. He runs to Kes Dameron, to what feels like the only place he’ll ever feel Poe Dameron in again.

He thinks of Rey. Thinks of her and Skywalker on Ahch-To. He thinks of the only goodness he can imagine left in the galaxy.

He bursts into Kes Dameron’s home, steps straight into the kitchen and suddenly, all the goodness in the galaxy is right here. _Poe Dameron is right here_ , seated at the table, his father standing in front of him, pressing the sort of kiss to his son’s forehead that only a father who’d believed he lost everything could. Kes is crying. Poe looks like he couldn’t cry anymore, even if he wanted to.

“Poe,” Finn says. His voice catches in his throat.

Kes doesn’t immediately pull away, and Finn doesn’t blame him. Poe swallows hard, then smiles. A sort of sad smile that’s for everyone in the room except himself. He starts to pull away from his father, who still isn’t ready to let go. “Finn,” Poe breathes back. “Hey, pal.” Kes pulls away, turns his back on Finn, busying himself withthe few dishes still left out on the counter. “This is one hell of a homecoming.”

—

Both Finn and Kes sit at the table, listening to the running water in the refresher. The water suddenly shuts off and Finn feels his heart jump into his throat. It’s a strange phenomena: thinking you’ve lost someone. It’s as though everything since that moment is another opportunity for loss. No matter how harmless or how mundane. _Poe Dameron was there, and then he wasn’t_. It was a difficult mentality to break out of.

The door to the refresher opens and closes. They hear Poe’s footsteps lead him towards his old bedroom. Kes sits a little straighter in his chair, listening. Finn has to stop himself from asking: _how do you do this?_ Every day, _how do you do this?_

Kes had gleaned enough out of his son to piece together what had happened on D’Qar. Turns out, the news Finn had heard in the cantina had been lagging by a few days. The First Order had found and attacked the base on D’Qar, far more swiftly and far more stealthily than the Resistance had imagined they’d be able to. If Finn had to guess, it happened only a few hours after the last holo he’d gotten from Poe.

Poe and a few other commanders had led their squadrons in an attack on the Star Destroyer that had brought the First Order to their doorstep. A few transport carriers took what was left of the Resistance to another system. Low on resources, low on fuel, only one transport carrier was able to make it to light speed. The two others were destroyed, along with the Resistance fighters onboard.

Deeper in the house, Finn hears Poe’s bedroom door open. Finn holds his breath, waiting for Poe to appear in the kitchen, smiling, safe, and _okay_. But Poe never comes out.

Finn looks to Kes, who smiles weakly. “Go,” he says. “See that he’s alright.”

Quietly, Finn strides towards Poe’s bedroom. He pauses in the doorway. QT-9 rolls back and forth slightly, watching Poe for any tell-tale signs of trauma.

There are still rivulets of water dripping from Poe’s long hair onto the back of his neck. He’s got his back to the door, so he doesn’t notice when Finn steps into the threshold of his bedroom. This room, this space, it had become _Finn’s_ over the last few weeks, but now, Finn can’t bring himself to step further inside without it feeling like an intrusion.

Poe is standing in front of his dresser. He’s still holding a towel in his hands, and even from where he is, Finn can see him fidgeting. He looks exhausted, smaller. His shoulders are a bit sunken and Finn thinks that if he says one wrong word, Poe Dameron might break entirely. But saying nothing at all feels like the greater of two evils.

Finn takes a deep breath, steps forward. “I can take that,” he says.

Poe turns on his heel. His jaw is set and eyes wide. It looks like Finn’s caught him doing something he shouldn’t be. “What?” He asks.

“The towel,” Finn explains. “I can get it washed.”

“Oh,” Poe says, breathing out a laugh. “No, you don’t have to.” He pauses, steels himself a little bit stronger and smiles what, to anyone else, might look like a real smile. “You’re the guest.”

Finn looks down at Poe’s hands and realizes that he’s holding something else as well. A photograph. Unframed and folded in on itself. “What’s that?” Finn asks, nodding towards Poe’s hands.

Poe looks like he wants hide the photo behind his back, pretend he hadn’t been caught with it. He chews on the inside of his cheek, and turns back towards the dresser, putting the picture back down. “Oh,” he says dismissively. “Just a picture.”

Finn looks at the photo, falling open on the dresser top. He recognizes Poe instantly. A few years younger, but unmistakably him, standing next to someone Finn has never seen. “Who is it?” Finn asks.

“Someone I knew from the Republic,” Poe says, shrugging. He looks up at Finn, who’s watching him closely. Finn doesn’t say anything else, but there’s an openness about him that makes Poe wish he wanted to _talk_ more than he does. So, he takes a few baby steps. Sees how far he can take this before it all becomes too much. “Muran,” he adds. “After he died, I joined the Resistance.” He chuckles ruefully. A sort of bitterness falls over him, but Finn sees: Poe doesn’t let that bitterness own him. “I thought that would make a difference. I didn’t think the Republic was _doing enough_ , so I left.”

“You are making a difference,” Finn says.

Poe sighs, nodding. “I know,” he says. “But doing nothing, doing something, it all comes back to right here.” He gestures vaguely at himself. At his own sadness and loss. He’s helpless to it all, but unwilling to stop fighting. “And I know it matters. I know _doing something_ matters. But it…” He pauses. He feels his own devastation and imagines it on every other surviving Resistance fighter. “It isn’t right. It isn’t right that these good people are doing the right thing and still losing.”

“Poe,” Finn starts. And he sees the moment where Poe decides that he’s allowed himself enough time to be sad and scared. He watches Poe decide that he’s got to be what his mother, and what General Organa think him to be: _be brave, be brave, be brave_.

“You’re walking better,” Poe interrupts. QT-9 rolls a little closer. “That’s good,” he adds through a smile.


End file.
